Spain's agony
UNITED NATIONS — The Grim Reaper has revisited Madrid. The ghastly hand of terror has returned to the Spanish capital and left its hideous handiwork among the bombed and twisted wreckage of train cars and murdered and maimed innocents. This carnage killing 192 civilians and injuring another 1,100 comes on the eve of Spain’s national elections and is thus aimed to destabilize and to intimidate. It won’t!
The Basque terrorist movement ETA remains prime suspect in this sickening but highly coordinated multi-blast attack on busy train stations. While the Madrid government blames militant Basques and vows to bring them to justice, not all the pieces fit together despite ETA’s long-time penchant for political violence.
Some will call the ETA separatists, and then calmly rationalize that their use of violence supporting the cause for an independent Basque state— including parts of Spain and France--while regrettable, is justified. Others will see the red flag of terror but will fail to view the carnage in Madrid as in Jerusalem, Istanbul, or New York in its true global dimension. Some will say that Spain was looking for trouble when it supported the U.S. against Saddam.
Let’s not forget that Spain in 2004 is not the young Spanish democracy of the 1980’s or 1990’s where the ETA bombing destabilizations operated in a very different context.
Spain’s membership in NATO, the European Union, and now the Euro currency has in the past fifteen years fundamentally transformed this proud Iberian land into an economic success story. But at the same time, it has opened its frontiers to large illegal immigration and crime.
Significantly let’s recall that Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has been a outspoken and unapologetic supporter of the USA war on terror and the liberation of Iraq. Spanish troops serve in Iraq today. Still domestic support for the Iraq policy has been vociferously divided. Now Spain is stunned by Western Europe’s biggest terrorist attack since Libyan agents bombed Pan Am flight #103.
Politically too in the run-up to last year’s invasion of Iraq, Spain went the extra diplomatic mile in supporting Anglo/American policy both in the UN Security Council and in global forums. Spain’s Foreign Minister Ana Palacio, provided eloquent and immeasurable assistance to the USA in the UN. Few appreciate this diplomatic cover she gave us in the Security Council when some other NATO allies, should we say, were less than supportive?
Just a year ago on this very weekend, the U.S., Britain, and Spain held a Summit on Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Azores islands to make the last minute appeal to Saddam. Bush, Blair, and Aznar — as well as Portugal’s Prime Minister Barroso pledged solidarity against Saddam. Just after the Summit, Spain’s Foreign Minister Palacio, advised the U.S. and Britain to withdraw its pending draft resolution, which would have met certain defeat in the Security Council, had it come to a formal vote.
What I’m saying is that Spain has made more than the usual enemies and should now look beyond the usual suspects. In the past year a number of Islamic fundamentalist cells have been rounded up in Spain and it’s an open secret that many illegal Muslim migrants in Spain are up to more than work. Al-Qaida terrorists have named Spain as a target.
Sympathy and support for Spain has come from America, the UN, and across Europe. Yet an active solidarity with Spain is really the issue here. A solidarity which does not rationalize, a solidarity which does not equivocate, a solidarity which does not waver, and a solidarity which does not soon forget.
They, these terrorists whoever they may be, shall not Pass!
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.  |
